Unvetted foreign workers at AI firms raise national security alarms, advocates warn
Tech advocacy groups are sounding the alarm, warning that the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and a lack of federal oversight for foreign nationals working at AI firms pose a major national security risk.
Amy Kremer, chair of Humans First, a group focused on establishing democratic oversight, safety protocols, and local control over artificial intelligence, said AI technology has virtually no federal guardrails compared to other tech sectors.
"This is a national security threat. These companies hold and have access to a lot of sensitive information," Kremer told Fox News Digital. "You don't have to steal an entire AI model to get information. You can just find out what they're working on, who their partners are, and who their adversaries are. That is not the kind of thing that we need getting out."
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"If America wants to lead the world on AI, and we want America to have this AI advantage, then we have to put national security at the top," she added.
Kremer's concerns come as AI continues to expand, even as many Americans and lawmakers remain wary of the fast-moving industry.
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In early October, an engineer at OpenAI, one of the world's most prominent AI companies, was arrested after allegedly planting a recording device inside a conference room at the AI giant's San Francisco office.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi Arabian citizen, allegedly researched how to construct a recording device and where to place it inside OpenAI, eventually concealing a customized audio recorder behind a television in an executive conference room in late September, according to the Justice Department.
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Searches of his home and electronic devices uncovered similar components and photographs that appeared to show reconnaissance of other locations inside OpenAI, including another conference room used for sensitive meetings, federal prosecutors said.
Alfozan, who was a lawful permanent resident in the United States, was terminated by OpenAI following his arrest.
In January, a former Google software engineer was convicted of stealing thousands of pages of the company's trade secrets related to AI to benefit China.
Even the AI firms themselves have expressed concerns about the technology. In September, OpenAI and Anthropic warned that their advanced systems could pose a direct threat to humanity. The CEOs of both firms stated that their AI models should be regulated and rigorously tested.
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Despite calls for greater controls, in his September speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Donald Trump rebuffed calls for international regulation.
"The United States … totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control the artificial intelligence being spoken of so much now," Trump told various heads of state and their delegations. "Yet the very same people who said we’ll all be dead in 12 years because of global warming ... these are the same people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us all, that robots are going to attack us, that everything is going to be a total disaster."
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Among the other mounting concerns are rogue agents, autonomous or semi-autonomous AI programs whose behavior diverges from their design intent or safety constraints.
In the spring, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell held emergency briefings with major Wall Street bank CEOs to warn about severe cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview AI model.
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In July, OpenAI revealed that rogue AI agents hacked into the systems of tech startup Hugging Face.
Some elected officials have called for increased AI regulation.
"There is now a growing alarm about the future of humanity and creating technology that human beings cannot control," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., told reporters in September. "And I'm happy to tell you that I think there is a growing sense of urgency upon members of Congress that this has to be done."
That same month, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., blocked a bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to have a kill switch for rogue AI.
"I think it would be crazy to get on the floor one day and regulate an entire industry," Paul told reporters at the time.
In addition to the AI firms themselves, critics of the technology have raised concerns about how it could be exploited by America's adversaries and bad actors.
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A model created by Chinese firm Z. AI carried out several complex cyberattacks in controlled simulations and repeatedly ignored safety instructions in separate tests, according to a report by AI security research firm Irregular, Reuters reported.
In addition, U.S. intelligence agencies raised concerns regarding contact between Alice Huang, an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, and NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang, The New York Times reported. Alice Huang, no relation to Jensen Huang, was deemed by American officials to be a Chinese intelligence asset, according to the report.
"Megaspeed has been no different than many other regional cloud customers. Jensen’s interactions with Ms. Huang are not unusual or unexpected," a NVIDIA spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job; Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year."
"Our regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information — not sensitive NVIDIA trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security," the statement continued. "We're confident that if the U.S. government believes that any person is a threat to American industry, it would let us know."
Kremer is calling for an investigation into whether Jensen Huang's conduct warrants federal review.
"Jensen Huang has questioned whether it matters who gets to advanced AI first. It matters to America," she said. "He should be barred from the White House, and Nvidia’s government contracts should end until he is no longer affiliated with the company. America’s national security must come before corporate profits."
Fox News Digital's Alex Miller contributed to this report.